Curve engraving

Comment

Comment by martyn hogg on September 17, 2017 at 2:50pm

Thanks for the info! I might try a sheet. I wonder if it works on vacuum beds? The vacuum bed at work can suck through sheets of mdf which always amazes me.

Comment by Siemen on September 13, 2017 at 1:23am

Hi Martyn,

It's Valchromat. It's more dense then mdf and gives quite a nice finish (also for products, they have it in different colours). It is way more expensive than mdf though.

We used to screw the sacrificial layer on the machine (on a thick plywood sheet, 30 mm I think) but we switched to gluing and screwing them on and then removing the screws after the glue has dried. We then plane down small layers and at a certain point we plane down to the plywood and glue a new plate on.

It indeed looks quite good and when we used to screw the sacraficial layer off, we also used it as building material for shelves, tables, and so on. This picture I took in front off a door made out of the sacraficial layer.

You're correct on the varied z by distance between curves. This makes sure all the tops of those shapes are at the same height.

Comment by martyn hogg on September 12, 2017 at 3:30pm

What is the sacrificial board you are using (shown in the background in this image?) I use MDF but because it is not homogenous through it's thickness I get a fuzzy finish when I skim the surface to get it flat and it can cause the MDF to warp if I skim it too deep.

The random machining marks look quite good sometimes!

The curve pattern looks great... Have you varied the Z by the distance between adjacent curves?